Accomplishments

Ohio PIRG along with  Student PIRGs across the country have a 30 year history of advocating for students, the environment and consumers.

Here are just a few of Ohio PIRG’s recent accomplishments:

New Voters Project: It’s time to make politicians pay attention to us.  The best way to get them to pay attention to young people and the issues we care about is to show up to the polls, so this year Ohio PIRG Students joined a nationwide voter registration and get out the vote effort.  We helped over 31,820 students register to vote and had 170,000 conversations with students in the days leading up to Election Day to remind them to turn out to the polls.

Making Textbooks More Affordable: Everyone knows that textbooks costs are out of control—the average student spends $900 per year!  We're promoting cost-saving solutions on campus while also tackling publishers' stranglehold on the market to change prices for good.  We're educating students, faculty and bookstores and raising awareness through research and media attention.  This year Ohio PIRG Students along with PIRG students across the country to hold 23 educational events and gather surveys from more than 3,600 students.  We were also able to educate more than 700 faculty members about low cost options and make it easier for students to shop around.

Making Higher Education More Affordable: In February, the U.S. House passed H.R. 1, a federal budget for 2011, which included a $5.7 billion cut to the Pell Grant program. If passed, that budget cut would have resulted in a $845 per person decrease in financial aid to the most needy recipients and have a chilling effect on the number of college students who can graduate and get into the workforce - at a time when our economy is just recovering.  Ohio PIRG Students and Student PIRG volunteers came together to generated thousands of calls and petitions to their Senators urging them to stop the cuts and helped to make sure they did not become law. 

Protecting Consumers: The marketplace can be daunting even for the most educated consumer.  To help students avoid rip-offs and unsafe products and have the information to make educated choices, we're creating a set of guides for students.  This semester, we released the Young Persons Guide to Health Care and a Guide to Controlling Your Information on Facebook.

Hunger and Homelessness: With the global recession, more and more people are struggling to meet their basic needs.  This year, we held a week-long series of education and service events on hundreds of college campuses to make sure that these problems stay on the forefront of people's minds.  This spring, Ohio PIRG students and students across the country held the annual Hunger Cleanup, raising more than $45,000 to fight hunger in their communities.

Sustainable U: Right now, global warming pollution is altering our climate in ways that will cause more heat-related deaths, more unhealthy air days, the spread of infectious disease, and many other negative impacts to our environment.  But instead of encouraging the Obama Administration to solve these problems, polluters and their allies in Congress pushed for a series of proposals to block the Clean Air Act from doing its job.  Teaming up with other student organizations around the country, Ohio PIRG volunteers convinced lawmakers to stop these rollbacks.

No Drills, No Spills: After the Gulf oil spill disaster, we joined a national coalition of groups to call for an end to new offshore drilling and a renewed commitment to breaking our country's dependence on oil. More than 400,000 Americans signed petitions and made calls to the Obama administration calling for a ban on new offshore drilling. And despite heavy pressure from big oil and gas companies, we won. On December 1st the Obama Administration announced that it will protect the coasts of the continental United States from new drilling through 2017.

Past Accomplishments

(2010) Helped pass a new law called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to lower health care costs for families including young adults by allowing them to stay on their parents’ coverage until age 26.

(2010) Helped to pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which among other things, adds $36 billion into the Pell grant program. Ohio PIRG Student Chapters and Student PIRG lobbying and organizing over the past several years was critical to the passage of this historic law.

(2009) Helped pass strong legislation called, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act that will end some of the worst abuses of the credit card industry, including some which are often targeted at college students.

(2009) Student PIRG and Ohio PIRG student activists mobilized their peers and helped persuade Congress to include an additional $2.5 billion down-payment for high-speed rail in their appropriations bill, more than doubling President Obama’s original recommendation.

(2009) Help to launch the Resolve Conference, where 250 students from across the country were joined by activists, advocates and organizers for a weekend of education and training to create anti-poverty campaigns in their communities.

(2008) Helped with passing the Higher Education Opportunity Act. The  law contains several important policy changes, including an increase in the maximum authorized level of the Pell Grant to $9,000.

(2008) Ohio PIRG students helped get an Affordable Textbooks provision included in the federal Higher Education Opportunity Act. The provision helps lower the cost of textbooks for millions of students by requiring publishers to disclose textbook pricing and revision information to faculty and requiring publishers to offer textbooks and supplemental materials "unbundled."

(2008) Ohio PIRG's New Voters Project and the Coalition for Oberlin Voters helped to collect over 2,000 voter registration forms for the 2008 elections.  They also worked with over 6 groups on and off campus to help register voters and to work around a new Ohio law that disenfranchised students. As part of the Coalition, Ohio PIRG not only promoted early voting by helping bus over 1,200 students to the Board of Elections for early voting, but also educated students of their rights at the polls.

(2008) Surveyed over 2,000 students and released a subsequent report, “The Campus Credit Card Trap,” which garnered nationwide media coverage.

(2007) Joined the nationwide Student PIRGs' What’s Your Plan? Campaign which talked to the presidential candidates over 100 times on the campaign trail, to ask them about their plans for global warming and higher education.

(2007) Helped pass the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, the largest increase in federal student aid in 20 years. The law also made dramatic cuts in interest rates for student loans.

(2006) Student PIRGs' New Voters Project helps register 75,000 young voters and makes 94,000 get-out-the-vote contacts to get youth across the country out to the polls

(2005) Joined PIRG students across the country to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in response to Hurricane Katrina and send hundreds of volunteers to the Gulf Coast to help with rebuilding efforts

(2004) The Student PIRGs' New Voters Project helps register 524,000 young voters across the country and works to turn them out to the polls

(2002) Ohio PIRG student activists help win $15 million to move schools off toxic waste dump

(2002) U.S. PIRG helps win critical Senate vote blocking drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

(2002) U.S. PIRG efforts are instrumental in defeat of dirty energy bill

(2001) Ohio PIRG and PIRGIM help win federal two-year moratorium on Great Lakes drilling

(2001) Ohio PIRG helps defeat proposal to keep consumer complaints about phone service secret

(2001) Ohio PIRG wins new privacy safeguards for social security numbers

(2000) Ohio PIRG helps stop polluters from using state funds to clean up brownfields they created

(2000) President Clinton announces PIRG-sponsored plan to protect 60 million acres of national forests

(1999) Ohio PIRG stops attack on Lemon Law, ultimately winning stronger law

(1998) Student PIRGs win law requiring colleges to distribute voter registration forms to students

(1998) Ohio PIRG wins legislative campaign for Beach Advisory Bill

(1997)  Ohio PIRG wins $750,000 water pollution fine against Laidlaw Environmental Services

(1996) Ohio PIRG convinces Medina and Cuyahoga counties to “Buy Recycled”

(1996) Ohio PIRG creates River Advocates volunteer program to collect data about waterways

(1995) State PIRGs deliver 1.2 million petition signatures to Congress, helping stop rollback of environmental laws

(1993) Ohio PIRG lawsuit wins $442,000 penalty against GE for Cincinnati River dumping

(1990) Ohio PIRG Clean Water Act lawsuit against Champion Spark Plug wins $50,000 penalty

(1990) Ohio PIRG wins lawsuit against Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel for illegal dumping in Ohio River

(1989) Ohio PIRG wins lawsuit against GFS Chemical Co. for Clean Air Act violations

(1985) Student PIRGs and USA for Africa launch National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness

(1984) The PIRGs' newly launched National Student Campaign for Voter Registration helps registers 750,000 student voters in its first year

(1980) Ohio PIRG helps defeat effort to weaken product liability laws

(1976) Ohio PIRG helps stop phone company discrimination against Ohio student

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